It’s a brand new day. Daytime fireworks were shooting into the morning sky. All students of Soul Power High School were excited about the Opening Ceremony of The Magic Duel. To them this was an exciting event where stalls and games will be available in the school for a week until the announcement of the qualifiers winner.

A female announcer voice was talking from the broadcast room, “Good morning, everyone and welcome to the annual Opening Week of The Magic Duel! Food stalls, games and prizes to be won. And don’t forget tomorrow’s qualifier! The first qualifier match will be an all out Treasure Hunt Match!”

Treasure Hunt. All participating team must go inside an artificial forest made by one of our teachers and find a coloured wand. They were only 24 of them by the way. In other words, the first 24 team to get the wand and activate it will win the qualification round and proceed to the group stage.

As of now, there are about more than 50 teams participating in this qualifier. It was that many. But later on once we finally know who gets to enter the group stage, it will get more intense even with just a small number.

“Yes! Don’t forget to enjoy the delicious food we have in our stalls everyone! Don’t forget! Some stalls are actually a one day only stall! So you better hurry up!” The announcer was very excited.

Foods and beverages. Hosuke totally love this kinds of thing. I’m not saying he was a food addict or anything. He’s just Hosuke. Now that I mentioned someone from Stardust, I notice that I haven’t found them for the whole day at all. Meanwhile somewhere at Haz’s Secret Lab which was also unofficially known as our Headquarters. The Stardust Headquarters. Lies a number of members whispering around trying to hatch up a plan. They finished by nodding with each other.

Revealing a face from the shadows of the HQ, it was Blax, “This will be a day he won’t forget.”

Another faces reveals beneath the shadows, it was Zone, “I can’t believe we are really going through this.”

“It’s your fault for causing a ruckus about Dark Diablo. Now you have to lead this mission.”

“Fine, Blax. I’ll do it. We’ll do it. Just make sure White doesn’t catch us for this.”

“Don’t worry Zone. It was carefully though out by professionals.” Blax said that confidently and menacingly. What the heck are they planning without me knowing at all?

Here I am walking all alone in this crowd. Lots of visitors came to our school just for the Opening Ceremony. It was probably because of guest singers coming later in the evening. I really don’t get these people. I feel kind of nauseating walking around in this crowd. What am I even doing?

As I keep on complaining to myself I heard a loud and familiar thunder strike. I looked at the direction where it was heard and I saw Rika was angry at a stall.

“Are you serious?! That’s cheating!”

“Now hold on miss. I ain’t cheating in this game. As long as you win, you’ll get a prize.” said the stall owner.

“But I already aimed carefully and none of them hit! You probably done something to this gun.”

It seems Rika was playing a shooting gallery game. She was always an ace in this kind of thing. With her lightning ability that is. I’m not sure about how well was her aiming when using a gun or any other projectile weapon. I guess interacting with her won’t hurt anyone at all.

“Hey, Rika. You should just give up. You know these stalls are only here because of the profit.”

“White?” Her faces was grumpy. “But I want the prize!”

Rika points at the stall’s prize. It would seem that anyone who manages to shoot all of the target will win an animal doll. I usually call it plushies. A felt doll. Whatever people call it these days.

“Hey there young fella. Why don’t you try to see whether my stall ain’t a cheat!” The stall owner asked me to play.

I think throughout and said, “Fine. I’ll play your game. Mister.”

“Alright then! 7 shots for 7 targets! Let’s see if you can do it!”

But for real though, 1 Gold Coin for a game? Kind of a rip off to be honest. This kind of game would usually be about 1 Silver Coins at least and 1 Gold Coin was pretty much 100 Silver Coins. I hate this shrewd stall owner. You can buy a big lunch with 1 Gold Coin!

But I’ll play this game alright. I’ll show him. I picked up the toy rifle and aimed at the target. Once I was ready, I pulled the trigger and the toy bullet hits the target. That’s one. I switched to the next target and it hits. Another one, another one, and another one and another one at that. Finally, I hit the last target without any difficulty. That was easy. Too easy. I even purposely tried to aim it at the wrong direction. Something wasn’t right there.

But even when I was about to notice it, the stall owner was congratulating me. Rika was shocked at how easy I shot all those targets.

“Congratulations young fella! You won! I told you my stall ain’t a cheat, miss! Now pick your prize young fella!”

“You can have it, Rika.” I looked at Rika who was then surprised by my offer.

“What? But it was your win. You should take the prize.”

“No, I don’t really want this doll and I kind of…helping you there.” I really don’t know why I stopped talking momentarily there.

Rika blushed a little and pointed at a mouse doll. To be more specific, it was a mouse holding a clock. Now why does that doll looked a bit funny. I am not quite sure about that. In any case, Rika was happy. She was so happy that she inadvertently hugged me along with the mouse known as Time Mouse. It’s not that I’m tired or anything. But my face was probably turned red when she hugged me.

“Oh thank you so much, White! You’re the best friend I can have.”

“Yeah, no problem.” That’s what I said. But in my mind it was probably like, “Oh goodness, I need medic! I'm falling down!” Glad that wasn’t the case.

“Hey White, wanna hang out with me for the rest of the day?”

“What? Me? I’m not sure.”

“Come on, White. It’ll be fine. I’m here for you. I know you’re not good in crowd so just sit tight with me.”

She looked at me with those puppy eyes. Those freaking adorable puppy eyes. Other boys would probably melt by these trickster. But I won’t. I already know her dirty tricks. Then all of a sudden a massive wave of crowd were walking around the area. It was so many that Rika seemed lost in the wave. She was being pushed back and forth. I couldn’t help it but sighed and grabbed her hand and pulled her away.

“I think you are the one who needs to sit tight.” I said that as I drag her away from the sudden waves of crowds.

“Oh um…yeah…sure…” Rika blushed again. It was probably because of how embarrassed she was.

Then again, I was holding her hand. Somehow, she grip it harder after we got out of the crowd. I said it was already fine to let go but she said she wanted to stay like this for a while. And so for the rest of the day we held hands and walked around the schools playing games and eating snacks. Just when the sun was about to go down, the crowd was getting bigger.

Her grip was also getting tighter. It wasn’t a too tight hold but it was bearable enough for me to walk around with her. We’ve done a lot of things in a single day. We played games, ate lunch, took a picture, and many other stuffs as well. But one thing for certain was that tomorrow she will be my enemy.

“The concert is starting. You wanna go, Rika?”

“Hmm, how about no. How about we go to the rooftop?”

“The rooftop? Why? Do you even have the keys? Nevermind. You have an all access card.”

We decided to go to the rooftop and looked at the school ground from above.

“Tomorrow’s the day huh, White.”

“Indeed it is.”

Then a long pause ensues until Rika opens up, “We’ll be enemy starting tomorrow.”

“I know that. We all know that.”

“Please. Just for tonight. Stay with me a little longer.” She held my arm as she said that.

I didn’t say much. I let her held my arm as we looked at the school ground that was filled with colourful lights.

“White…” her gentle voice softly enters my eardrum.

“What’s wrong?”

She rested her head next to my arm, “Promise to me.”

“What?”

Her soft lips trembles a little and her whole body was warm, “Promise to me that you will pass the qualifier.”

I looked at her bright eyes that were shined by the moonlight and stars above and said, “Of course. I will.”

She continued, “and promise to me that…” she was hesitating, “you’ll be fine…”

Her voice seemed to be sunken in slowly when she said all of that.

Without thinking much I said, “Yes. I promise.”

Then, out of nowhere a firework shoots out into the night sky. How much more will this go on. I think I just have to let it be like this just for tonight. Yeah…tonight. I patted her head and rubbed her hair. The next thing I could remember was that it was a long night. But for some odd reason, I feel like all of these doesn't sound right at all. It felt too convenient for both me and Rika. I wonder whatever those fools were doing at that time...

TO BE CONTINUED